The unique thing that literature provides is to be able to step so fully into another situation and condition.

And he isn't crying for her, not for his grandma, he's crying for himself: that he: too, is going to die one day. And before that his friends wil die, and the friends of his friends, and, as time passes, the children of his friends, and, if his fate is truly bitter, his own children. (58)

Wittgenstein once wrote that when the eye sees something beautiful, the hand wants to draw it. I wish I could draw you.

I walked down my snow covered street. Out of habit I turned and checked for my footsteps. When I arrived at my building I looked for my name on the buzzers. And because I know that sometimes I see things that aren't there, after dinner I called Information to ask if I was listed.(25)

There are so many ways to be alive, but only one way to be dead.

If I had a camera,' I said, 'I'd take a picture of you every day. That way I'd remember how you looked every single day of your life.

Don’t you see?” I said. “He could change every detail, but he couldn’t change her.” “But why?” His obtuseness frustrated me. “Because he was in love with her!” I said. “Because, to him, she was the only thing that was real.